[HD2 General] lynxboy:
Just skimming through this thread, it shocks me how misinformed some users are when it comes to Android.

As a long time Windows Mobile user (days of the iPAQ through to Touch Pro 2) who made the switch earlier this year, I know what I'm talking about when comparing the two. I also used to be a staunch defender of Windows Mobile, using the same "it does everything I want and need" excuse whenever someone mentioned another mobile OS.

This excuse masked the reality that Windows Mobile is a tired, dying OS with a clunky UI which bears little relevance in todays fast paced smartphone market.

It does everything I want and need....

While I can understand people saying this, it smacks me as ignorant. Analogies can be drawn easily.... Technically, regarding desktop OS, Windows 98 does everything you could want and need. Following this train of thought, why on earth would you upgrade to Windows XP/Vista :o/7? I wonder how many users of this forum are still using Windows 98. You can email, use the internet, work on office, watch videos and play games, so why the upgrade to later versions?

That's all that needs to be said on this.

Windows Mobile is infinitely customisable, Android doesn't come close!

Let's be honest, the reason we all frequent this forum is because deep down, we're all geeks!! Smartphones for us are not to be unboxed and run as stock, they are made to be tinkered with, to hack, to theme and to make our own. That for me was what made Windows Mobile. Not a day would go by without me changing some element, whether just changing the look of the status bar or flashing a whole new ROM due to it having an increased amount of available RAM, that was what made my device fun. What Windows Mobile stated, Android continues and it can be argued, improves upon.

Android is Open Source. It's whole source code is freely available online for developers to examine, debug and tweak to their liking. Yes you can theme Android, any visual aspect of the OS can be modded be it status bars, buttons, icons, lockscreens and/or sounds etc. My version of Android looks nothing like stock, oh and I don't need to bother with Sense!

Where Android surpasses Windows Mobile in this respect, is the ability for the source code to be tweaked and improved upon to increase the potential ability of the handset. Do some research into Cyanogenmod and you'll understand why believing you are going to miss out on customising your phone sticking to WinMo is a huge mistake. Functions such as Wireless Tether and Apps2SD were available through modification and custom ROMS well before they actually became standard features in the AOSP code.

I challenge anyone who still believes WinMo to be ahead of Android in customisabilty to go and lurk in the Nexus One or G1 Themes and Apps/Android Development and see for themselves what is available.

Windows Mobile is more powerful when it comes to media playback!

If this was said two months ago, I would have agreed. As a frequent traveller (Coach, Train and Plane) being able to watch films on my phone in the format I download them from Usenet/Newsgroups is invaluable. So many times I'd wait til the last minute to transfer across a film, meaning mp4 conversion was out of the question! TCMP and then Coreplayer were for me one of Windows Mobile's strongest points. They still are, especially when combined with the HD2!

However, no longer can it be used as an argument for Windows Mobile superiority. In the last month or so a new app called RockPlayer has emerged on Android which playes nearly all video formats perfectly. I've even tested 720p MKV on my Nexus One and it handled it well. When you combine this with the new Adobe Flash integration and apps such as 'Television', the upcoming iPlayer and included Amazon MP3 store, not to mention the new Droid with HDMI output, it would be hard to disagree that Android may hold a slight edge.

You can't install apps to the memory card on Android, FAIL!

What a load of nonsense. Even before it was natively supported in Android 2.2, due to the depth of customisation, Apps2SD was incorportated on many, if not all custom ROMs. Simply partitioning your SD card to EXT allowed you to install as many apps as you wanted.

Windows Mobile is far superior for business users...

This again is a fatally flawed argument. Yes Windows Mobile has Exchange/Active Sync, but so does Android since 2.2! Even before it was natively supported, 3rd party apps such as Touchdown gave Android support for Exchange in a much improved UI over WinMo! People will brag about being able to edit and open Office documents on WinMo, which again, through 3rd party apps such as Documents to Go is available on Android. Still, find me someone working in a business environment who really uses their smartphone to edit Office documents?! Email/Exchange functionality is the only feature they would be interested in and this is supported by both OS.

I'm not interested in fart apps!

Who needs apps? I'm too mature to be playing with apps! I can live without apps!

Well, who needs cars? Who needs planes? I mean, before they were invented people lived perfectly well without them but try living in today's society without these two engineering marvels!

The mobile app market is defying the recession and is shaping up to be the future of computing. I'm lucky enough to be interning at a top marketing company here in the UK, and the one area they are expanding in these tough times is their mobile development department. Whether it simply be the XDA-Developers app or an Augmented Reality app showing the local sights in a tourist town, it cannot be argued against that mobile apps are changing the way we live. Unfortunately Windows Mobile doesn't have the appeal for the top developers or companies to even bother making apps for it. So much so Microsoft sold out and started Windows Phone 7, which while I predict will be successful in the consumer 'mass' market, completely drops the community that made Windows Mobile what it was. Yes Android has thousands of 'crapps' but it also has thousands of amazing apps and games which rival the quality of those produced on the iPhone.

Many Windows Mobile users scream about quality, not quantity but how can developers be attracted to make quality apps when the SDK and API's for WinMo are so limited and dated, hindering the potential possibilities on the platform. Yes the community is great and I myself have benefited from some of the great apps available for WinMo here at XDA, but in the real world it counts for nothing. The community for Android is just as great and it still has the real world backing of developers and businesses now and in the future.

Anyway Windows Mobile while having some great apps, just cannot ever compete presently and more importantly in the future with Android.

The transitions are laggy...

I suggest rather than watching a Youtube video of Android over GPRS or relying on a buggy port to gather a sense of how well the transitions work, go to your local phone store and have a play with a Droid X :).

I like the GPS options...

I'm not even going to waste my time discussing this. (Free for all Google Maps Navigation)

I don't like the fact Google will own my life!

Go home and remove your Facebook account, then call your ISP and try and obtain all data and history it has on your IP address. You might also want to consider asking for your medical records, your driving license/insurance history, your University/School reports, your work attendance records, your mobile/home phone records, credit cards/store cards bla bla bla bla........

Your life is already available and open to abuse by the government and corportations.... at least Google are keeping things FREE... for now!

These are just some of the statements I have noticed in this thread and my own (So now you've tried it..). I'm not a Windows Mobile hater and still own a Touch Cruise (although it is NAND flashed with Android :D), just I am able to accept that its day has come and gone. It is still capable of performing, it always will be, but then so is my neighbours 30 year old Mercedes but even he has a modern version with power steering, GPS and heated seats.....you get the picture.

Seriously, sooner or later (3-5 Years) this forum will be a dedicated Android community. Many of you who now still believe WinMo to be better than Android, will be here discussing the new kernels and themes for the new Android 5.2 release and looking back in the Windows Mobile Archive thinking how ridiculous this thread really was.....

Regards, I look forward to seeing you on the other side.